Utility Overview

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, EPCOR USA’s wholly owned subsidiaries build, own and operate water and wastewater and natural gas facilities and infrastructure in the southwestern United States. EPCOR USA provides water, wastewater, wholesale water and natural gas services to approximately 780,000 people across 42 communities and 18 counties in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. EPCOR USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of EPCOR Utilities Inc.

EPCOR, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, builds, owns and operates electrical, natural gas and water transmission and distribution networks, water and wastewater treatment facilities, sanitary and stormwater systems, and infrastructure in Canada and the United States. The Company also provides electricity, natural gas and water products and services to residential and commercial customers. EPCOR, headquartered in Edmonton, is an Alberta Top 75 employer.

Background

EPCOR’s vision has always been to deliver the best water/wastewater, natural gas, and electricity service and the best possible customer experience to its customers in North America. To meet the challenges of a growing customer base and raise its customer satisfaction levels ever higher, and to do both without increasing existing staff level, EPCOR USA partnered with VertexOne. Together, they rolled out VertexOne Customer AdvantageTM for EPCOR USA’s water customers in the southwestern United States. The following year, the utility’s customer satisfaction had risen to 95% and call volume had decreased by 18%, even while the number of total utility accounts grew by 6.5%.

 

Raising the Bar for Utility Customer Service: EPCOR’s USA's Three-Year Plan

With this success, EPCOR USA planned to roll out Customer AdvantageTM for the rest of its North American subsidiaries. Even more importantly, it defined a three-year plan to raise the bar for excellent service to meet customer expectations while driving operational efficiencies and costs to minimize impact on customer rates.

EPCOR USA issued an RFP that included CIS needs, proactive communication, outage notifications, new metering technology support, and more automated dispatch and field service. In its response, VertexOne not only demonstrated its CIS EssentialsTM platform met EPCOR USA’s goals but that it was able to make EPCOR USA’s rate and recovery case to support the project.

EPCOR USA then selected VertexOne once again as its technology partner, and the three-year project began.

 

VertexOne CIS EssentialsTM will help EPCOR USA realize its goals for now and beyond

VertexOne CIS Essentials — A suite of VertexOne tools and services to drive automation and efficiencies in areas of service delivery and customer support where manual processes are prevalent.

VertexOne Customer Engagement suite, including —

Customer Advantage — A fully hosted and managed, scalable, and secure solution that integrates with a number of CIS systems, lowers cost, and increases customer satisfaction and self-service. Communication Advantage — A full suite of tools for efficient customer communications, including opt-in/out, content management, templates, triggers, and other automation Document Advantage — Manages customer documentation, including letters, contracts, images, audio recordings, and videos, and integrates with Customer Advantage and existing CIS.

VertexOne FieldWork — Mobile workforce management suite to connect dispatchers with field technicians to centralize work management and optimize the scheduling of work assignments.

WaterSmart/MeterSmart — A customer engagement and data analytics platform to reduce the cost to serve utility customers, improve operational efficiency, and increase customer satisfaction with powerful outbound communications, automated self-service, and usage insights.

 

Download the Customer Brief

 

VertexOne’s re-named product portfolio echoes the company’s long-standing mission to enhance the customer experience. Therefore, products mentioned in this case study may not reflect our current portfolio names. Click the link to learn more about our product renaming and restructure.